611 research outputs found
Trans-Magnetosonic Accretion in a Black Hole Magnetosphere
We present the critical conditions for hot trans-fast magnetohydrodynamical
(MHD) flows in a stationary and axisymmetric black-hole magnetosphere. To
accrete onto the black hole, the MHD flow injected from a plasma source with
low velocity must pass through the fast magnetosonic point after passing
through the ``inner'' or ``outer'' Alfven point. We find that a trans-fast MHD
accretion solution related to the inner Alfven point is invalid when the
hydrodynamical effects on the MHD flow dominate at the magnetosonic point,
while the other accretion solution related to the outer Alfven point is invalid
when the total angular momentum of the MHD flow is seriously large. When both
regimes of the accretion solutions are valid in the black hole magnetosphere,
we can expect the transition between the two regimes. The variety of these
solutions would be important in many highly energetic astrophysical situations.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, accepted to Ap
Efficiency of Magnetized Thin Accretion Disks in the Kerr Metric
The efficiency of thin disk accretion onto black holes depends on the inner
boundary condition, specifically the torque applied to the disk at the last
stable orbit. This is usually assumed to vanish. I estimate the torque on a
magnetized disk using a steady magnetohydrodynamic inflow model originally
developed by Takahashi et al., 1990. I find that the efficiency epsilon can
depart significantly from the classical thin disk value. In some cases epsilon
> 1, i.e. energy is extracted from the black hole.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, aastex, submitted to ApJ Letter
Reliability of astrophysical jet simulations in 2D. On inter-code reliability and numerical convergence
This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: M. Krause and M. Camezind, 'Reliability of astrophysical jet simulations in 2D', Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 380 (III): 789-804, December 2001, the version of record is available online at doi: DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20011452. © ESO 2001In the present paper, we examine the convergence behavior and inter-code reliability of astrophysical jet simulations in axial symmetry. We consider both pure hydrodynamic jets and jets with a dynamically significant magnetic field. The setups were chosen to match the setups of two other publications, and recomputed with the MHD code NIRVANA. We show that NIRVANA and the two other codes give comparable, but not identical results. We explain the differences by the different application of artificial viscosity in the three codes and numerical details, which can be summarized in a resolution effect, in the case without magnetic field: NIRVANA turns out to be a fair code of medium efficiency. It needs approximately twice the resolution as the code by Lind (Lind et al. 1989) and half the resolution as the code by Kössl (Kössl & Müller 1988). We find that some global properties of a hydrodynamical jet simulation, like e.g. the bow shock velocity, converge at 100 points per beam radius (ppb) with NIRVANA. The situation is quite different after switching on the toroidal magnetic field: in this case, global properties converge even at 10 ppb. In both cases, details of the inner jet structure and especially the terminal shock region are still insufficiently resolved, even at our highest resolution of 70 ppb in the magnetized case and 400 ppb for the pure hydrodynamic jet. The magnetized jet even suffers from a fatal retreat of the Mach disk towards the inflow boundary, which indicates that this simulation does not converge, in the end. This is also in definite disagreement with earlier simulations, and challenges further studies of the problem with other codes. In the case of our highest resolution simulation, we can report two new features: first, small scale Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities are excited at the contact discontinuity next to the jet head. This slows down the development of the long wavelength Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and its turbulent cascade to smaller wavelengths. Second, the jet head develops Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities which manage to entrain an increasing amount of mass from the ambient medium with resolution. This region extends in our highest resolution simulation over 2 jet radii in the axial direction.Peer reviewe
Testing the Disk-Locking Paradigm: An Association Between U-V Excess and Rotation in NGC 2264
We present some results from a UVI photometric study of a field in the young
open cluster NGC 2264 aimed, in part, at testing whether accretion in pre-main
sequence stars is linked to rotation. We confirm that U-V excess is well
correlated with H-alpha equivalent width for the stars in our sample. We show
that for the more massive stars in the cluster sample (roughly 0.4-1.2 M_sun)
there is also a significant association between U-V excess and rotation, in the
sense that slow rotators are more likely to show excess U-band emission and
variability. This constitutes significant new evidence in support of the
disk-locking paradigm.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letter
Relativistic Dynamos in Magnetospheres of Rotating Compact Objects
The kinematic evolution of axisymmetric magnetic fields in rotating
magnetospheres of relativistic compact objects is analytically studied, based
on relativistic Ohm's law in stationary axisymmetric geometry. By neglecting
the poloidal flows of plasma in simplified magnetospheric models, we discuss
self-excited dynamos due to the frame-dragging effect (originally pointed out
by Khanna & Camenzind), and we propose alternative processes to generate
axisymmetric magnetic fields against ohmic dissipation. The first process
(which may be called induced excitation) is caused by the help of a background
uniform magnetic field in addition to the dragging of inertial frames. It is
shown that excited multipolar components of poloidal and azimuthal fields are
sustained as stationary modes, and outgoing Poynting flux converges toward the
rotation axis. The second one is self-excited dynamo through azimuthal
convection current, which is found to be effective if plasma rotation becomes
highly relativistic with a sharp gradient in the angular velocity. In this case
no frame-dragging effect is needed, and the coupling between charge separation
and plasma rotation becomes important. We discuss briefly the results in
relation to active phenomena in the relativistic magnetospheres.Comment: 16 pages, AASLaTeX macros v4.
Magnetar Spindown, Hyper-Energetic Supernovae, and Gamma Ray Bursts
The Kelvin-Helmholtz cooling epoch, lasting tens of seconds after the birth
of a neutron star in a successful core-collapse supernova, is accompanied by a
neutrino-driven wind. For magnetar-strength ( G) large scale
surface magnetic fields, this outflow is magnetically-dominated during the
entire cooling epoch.Because the strong magnetic field forces the wind to
co-rotate with the protoneutron star,this outflow can significantly effect the
neutron star's early angular momentum evolution, as in analogous models of
stellar winds (e.g. Weber & Davis 1967). If the rotational energy is large in
comparison with the supernova energy and the spindown timescale is short with
respect to the time required for the supernova shockwave to traverse the
stellar progenitor, the energy extracted may modify the supernova shock
dynamics significantly. This effect is capable of producing hyper-energetic
supernovae and, in some cases, provides conditions favorable for gamma ray
bursts. We estimate spindown timescales for magnetized, rotating protoneutron
stars and construct steady-state models of neutrino-magnetocentrifugally driven
winds. We find that if magnetars are born rapidly rotating, with initial spin
periods () of millisecond, that of order erg of
rotational energy can be extracted in seconds. If magnetars are born
slowly rotating ( ms) they can spin down to periods of
second on the Kelvin-Helmholtz timescale.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, emulateap
The effect of stellar feedback on the formation and evolution of gas and dust tori in AGN
Recently, the existence of geometrically thick dust structures in Active
Galactic Nuclei (AGN) has been directly proven with the help of mid-infrared
interferometry. The observations are consistent with a two-component model made
up of a geometrically thin and warm central disk, surrounded by a colder,
fluffy torus component. In an exploratory study, we investigate one possible
physical mechanism, which could produce such a structure, namely the effect of
stellar feedback from a young nuclear star cluster on the interstellar medium
in centres of AGN. The model is realised with the help of the hydrodynamics
code TRAMP. We follow the evolution of the interstellar medium by taking
discrete mass loss and energy ejection due to stellar processes, as well as
optically thin radiative cooling into account. In a post-processing step, we
calculate observable quantities (spectral energy distributions and images) with
the help of the radiative transfer code MC3D. The interplay between injection
of mass, supernova explosions and radiative cooling leads to a two-component
structure made up of a cold geometrically thin, but optically thick and very
turbulent disk residing in the vicinity of the angular momentum barrier,
surrounded by a filamentary structure. The latter consists of cold long radial
filaments flowing towards the disk and a hot tenuous medium in between, which
shows both inwards and outwards directed motions. This modelling is able to
reproduce the range of observed neutral hydrogen column densities of a sample
of Seyfert galaxies as well as the relation between them and the strength of
the silicate 10 micron spectral feature. Despite being quite crude, our mean
Seyfert galaxy model is even able to describe the SEDs of two intermediate type
Seyfert galaxies observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted by MNRAS, high resolution version can
be downloaded from:
http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~mschartm/papers/schartmann_2008b.pd
The origins of Causality Violations in Force Free Simulations of Black Hole Magnetospheres
Recent simulations of force-free, degenerate (ffde) black hole magnetospheres
indicate that the fast mode radiated from (or near) the event horizon can
modify the global potential difference in the poloidal direction orthogonal to
the magnetic field, V, in a black hole magnetosphere. There is a fundamental
contradiction in a wave that alters V coming from near the horizon. The
background fields in ffde satisfy the ``ingoing wave condition'' near the
horizon (that arises from the requirement that all matter is ingoing at the
event horizon), yet outgoing waves are radiated from this region in the
simulation. Studying the properties of the waves in the simulations are useful
tools to this end. It is shown that regularity of the stress-energy tensor in a
freely falling frame requires that the outgoing (as viewed globally) waves near
the event horizon are redshifted away and are ineffectual at changing V. It is
also concluded that waves in massless MHD (ffde) are extremely inaccurate
depictions of waves in a tenuous MHD plasma, near the event horizon, as a
consequence black hole gravity. Any analysis based on ffde near the event
horizon is seriously flawed.Comment: 9 pages to appear in ApJ Letter
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